


Needling

by parcequelle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Ficlet, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23280040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parcequelle/pseuds/parcequelle
Summary: ‘For that, Madam Hooch, we are going to do this the Muggle way.’
Relationships: Rolanda Hooch/Minerva McGonagall
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	Needling

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Delphi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Delphi/gifts).



> This is a belated fill for delphi, who answered my call for International Women's Day prompts with: _Hooch & McGonagall or Hooch/McGonagall, bonding over a shared interest that's neither Quidditch nor Transfiguration_. Thank you for the prompt!

There is a basket on the carpet beside Minerva’s couch, and it isn’t the one she usually sleeps in when she’s gone feline. Rolanda tries to peer into it while Minerva is focussed on the house elf who has just appeared with their tea, but she should have known better.

‘Rolanda, dear?’

Bloody cat woman has eyes in the back of her head.

Rolanda smoothly – well, sort of – manoeuvres her craning bend into a slide onto the couch, where she props her arm against the backrest and throws her a leg over the arm of it as though she intended to do so all along. ‘Yes, Minerva?’

‘Where are your knitting needles?’

‘What?’ Rolanda laughs. ‘I thought you were joking!’

Minerva turns and narrows bright eyes at her, a move that would be more pronounced were Rolanda not accustomed to seeing it most mornings, and certainly every Sunday, when her wand alarm went off at 4am to remind her to broom-check the castle’s outer wards. ‘Oh, honestly. When am I ever joking?’

Rolanda snorts at that. Minerva cracks a smile.

‘Joke or not, love, I didn’t bring them because I haven’t any and I don’t know how to knit. What would I want with knitting needles?’ Before Minerva can say something terribly logical like, “You could knit something, Rolanda,” Rolanda grins and adds, ‘That’s what I’ve got you for.’

‘I see how it is,’ Minerva says grimly, but floats over a perfect cup of tea all the same. ‘I’m only here to provide you with new jumpers and socks, is that it?’

Rolanda takes a sip of tea and sighs her pleasure. ‘And tea,’ she says seriously. ‘And company.’

Minerva raises an eyebrow, the eyebrow that sometimes means Rolanda’s about to get yelled at and sometimes means she’s about to get backed against a nearby wall and given a thorough seeing to. She loves that eyebrow. ‘For that, Madam Hooch, we are going to do this the Muggle way.’

Rolanda’s eyes widen – visions of awkward tubes and unlikely props and no cleaning spells flit through her mind – and Minerva nearly snorts tea out her nose. ‘Get your mind out of the gutter; I didn’t mean _that_. I meant knitting.’

Rolanda blinks, a bit too slowly – her mind is still stuck in the previous scene, and it doesn’t much want to leave – and then she makes a face. ‘Why?’

‘It’s a useful pastime, knitting. It’s productive and relaxing and it supports the development of hand-eye coordination.’

Rolanda smirks. ‘I’m a flight instructor, Minerva. I think you’ll find I’m already good with my hands.’

‘Oh, spare me the innuendo of Hufflepuffs who should have been Slytherins and hold these.’ She sets her cup down and summons the mysterious basket to her lap, where she pulls out three balls of different coloured yarn and several sets of knitting needles in varying sizes.

Rolanda stares at them in horror. She stares some more. And then, very slowly, she says, ‘Minerva. Minerva, they aren’t moving.’

‘Are they not?’

Realisation hits her like a bludger to the head. ‘You mean… oh, Merlin help me. You mean we’re… going to do this the Muggle way.’

Minerva hands her a set of needles – Rolanda tries to cast a surreptitious charm on them, but they are distinctly, suspiciously blocked by cat-woman magic and remain unmoved – and smirks. ‘I’ll teach you the basics. It’s straightforward, really, once you get the hang of it.’

Rolanda scowls at her. She considers transfiguring the needles into broomsticks and escaping out the window. But Minerva says, ‘Make it to ten rows on your scarf, and I’ll let you demonstrate just how good you are with your hands,’ and Rolanda grins.

If that’s her reward, she can give this knitting thing a go.


End file.
